For some have already wandered away to follow Satan.

He said to them, “Follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people.”

and the one in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.

And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people.”

The one in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.

Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

who is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal!”

After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer.

So when Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they retreated and fell to the ground.

Even from among your own group men will arise, teaching perversions of the truth to draw the disciples away after them.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead,

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day when I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,

He proclaimed, “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals.

Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.

But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to be king over us!’

This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’

Thus the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you can do nothing. Look, the world has run off after him!”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.